


Your Gravity

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Kissing is Considered Marriage on Alien Planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose to a set of cascading cliffs in a system at the very edge of the universe. The sit on the very top of a hill — the Doctor perched at the very edge of the blanket with his hands locked around his knees and Rose lying flat on her stomach with her head perched on her hand, gazing out at the sight spread before them. Across a canyon, waterfalls creep up the sides of the rock faces instead of falling down them, and she has never looked more enamored with anything.The Doctor, however, barely looks at the waterfalls.He’s looking at her.Written for the Just Married Exchange
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Your Gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shnuffeluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/gifts).



Rose thrives on new planets.

She grips the Doctor’s hand tight and tugs him around as though she owns the place — pointing excitedly at anything that interests her with a bright grin plastered across her face. It is almost enough to drag him out of his misery long enough to forget about the Time War and the terrible things that he did to end it. When he’s with Rose Tyler, he enthusiastically and wholeheartedly believes in love and bright futures and second chances. He still scowls, he still remains standoffish, he still hides behind dark leather jackets — but when he looks at her, those hard edges soften. The wall around his twin hearts gives way just enough to allow warmth to pass through uncontested.

She gives and gives and gives to him, and half the time, she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.

That’s the thing about humans, he thinks. They don’t always intend to be remarkable, but they are anyway.

They live remarkable lives and do remarkable things, and they often get very little credit for doing so.

He plans to change that soon.  
  
Rose Tyler deserves all the credit in the world.

****

There’s a ring burning a hole in the Doctor’s pocket.

He doesn’t remember when he got it. Maybe it was left behind from someone he traveled with before. Maybe he had picked it up on a whim back when he was young and stupid instead of old and stupid. Maybe the TARDIS made it one day out of hope and thought and molton metal.

But it doesn’t really matter where it came from.

It’s the destination that’s important.

Someday, he thinks, the time is going to be right to ask Rose Tyler if she’d like to stay with him, live out her life by his side as long as she can, treasure each and every day together. It’s a hard question to ask. He hasn’t known her for that long, however, she’s made such a profound impact on him that he feels compelled to honor it with something more tangible than dances and jokes and tired, empty promises.

He’s done his research. He’s read some books, watched some movies, and asked around to make absolutely sure that he has the details right. He’s not from her time or her country or her planet or her galaxy, but he wants a proposal to feel familiar to her, wants it to _mean_ something.

He’s nervous, but he won’t run away from this. He won’t play the coward. He won’t let her slip through the cracks simply because he failed to show interest in a meaningful way.

He’s just waiting for the right time.

****

There’s a day spent in an open-air market — where the breeze tasted like salt and lavender and something so alien as to be indescribable. Rose convinces him to buy something silly with money that he doesn't have but she lends him hers to close the deal on a hat that is three sizes too big and absurdly shaped. He feels ridiculous, but she bursts into laughter every time he dares to turn his head, and he cannot help but catch her glee, just a little bit. A chuckle bubbles up from his lungs, and she bends over, clutching her sides and howling as if she has never felt that much joy before.

“Would’ve never thought you’d do that,” she manages to wheeze when she gets most of her breath back, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with the tips of her fingers.

 _I would do anything for you_ , he thinks but does not say.

Instead he says, “See? I can be fun sometimes.”

“Man in a big lumbering box that travels through space and time? _Fun_? Seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it?”

Her elbow bumps against his side teasingly, and he feels the ring in his pocket.

But it’s busy and bright and crowded, and he’s in a hat that’s much too big, and most importantly, he doesn’t dare to ruin the moment.

“I don’t think the TARDIS'd appreciate being called lumbering.”

He tries to forget about the ring, though his beating hearts keep drawing him back to it.

It’s just not the right time.

****

The Doctor takes Rose to a set of cascading cliffs in a system at the very edge of the universe. The sit on the very top of a hill — the Doctor perched at the very edge of the blanket with his hands locked around his knees and Rose lying flat on her stomach with her head perched on her hand, gazing out at the sight spread before them. Across a canyon, waterfalls creep up the sides of the rock faces instead of falling down them, and she has never looked more enamored with anything.

The Doctor, however, barely looks at the waterfalls.

He’s looking at her.

“How’s it do that?” she asks, still staring out at the world, lips parted with wonder.

“It’s a trick of the gravity. Having two planets so —“

She cuts him off, rolling onto her back and shooting him a smile, “Takes some of the wonder out of it if you actually know, doesn’t it?”

The Doctor’s eyes flick away from her for a passing moment, regarding the air in front of him with quiet intensity. “I was always taught that to appreciate the universe was to understand it, and to understand the universe is to learn how to dominate it.” The words are bitter on his tongue. It feels wrong to disparage the dead, to question their practices, to reject a home and an upbringing that he genuinely mourns, but it also feels important. He left them for a reason. He moved away from selfishness and towards compassion, and he’s never once regretted that choice.

“Well, I think we’d be a terrible pair of rulers, don’t you? And besides —” she says, rolling onto her back again — “A place like this doesn’t need anyone mucking about with it. It feels free, you know? Free in a way that nothing on Earth is.”

The Doctor’s eyes fall to her again, kind and gentle and full of love.

He thinks of that ring again, tucked away and lying in wait, but she’s back to looking at the world, hardly bothering with him at all.  
  
He doesn't want to interrupt her.

****

They stroll through the empty hallways of a labyrinth, taking wrong turns on purpose and feigning complaints whenever they hit a dead end.

“We should start marking the paths, or we’ll never get out of here,” Rose says after several hours, though she hardly seems tired of it.

It’s a puzzle with all the thrill of a genuine adventure and none of the danger, and they were both badly in need of that kind of reprieve.

“Marking paths is for cheaters,” the Doctor says, poking his head around a blind corner and beckoning for her to follow.

“I thought you always cheat.” Her steps are less walking than they are skipping — light and airy and without a care in the world.

“On exams, not on anything important.”

“You told me you cheated at flying your own ship.” There’s a hand on his side as she walks past, sneaking under his jacket and running over the soft fabric of his shirt. He follows the movement with his eyes, but does not comment.

“Yes, well, I failed the first three times, didn’t I? Had to make the fourth one count somehow.”

Eventually, they make it out, and he almost drops to a knee — almost bares his hearts and says the words that he’s memorized — but it seems a hollow occasion to celebrate.

Idiots have made it out of here before.

He would know. He is one.

****

After the Doctor gets desperate and antsy enough to start to seriously consider asking _Jackie_ for help, he starts to form an actual plan instead of relying on serendipity.

After hours agonizing, he settles on the perfect spot. Vienna by night — a place of swirling skirts and soaring music and flickering chandeliers. He digs a suit out of the depths of the TARDIS, and when he emerges into the console room — high collar and pressed seams and all — he genuinely thinks that Rose will laugh at him, but much to his surprise, she doesn’t.

She merely inclines her head — gleaming curls and glittering stones catching the light and says in a faux posh accent, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.”

“The pleasure is mine,” he says, and he means every word of it.

They link arms and set off into the night together.  
  
  
****  
  


He almost loses his nerve on three separate occasions. Once, he even manages to misplace Rose altogether, only to find her hovering near a refreshment table. “These are really, really good,” she observes, gesturing at the spread, mouth still full of a sweet-smelling treat.

The Doctor clears his throat and wets his lips and asks, “Will you come onto the balcony? With me?”  
  
The question is stilted and awkward, and Rose notices the deviation from his normal behavior.

“Why?” Her eyebrows lift, and she tilts her head every so slightly, regarding him intently.

“I have something I want to show you.”

****

The Doctor takes a deep breath and opens both his hearts to her, offering up a ring and a promise and a shared future.

And much to his delight, Rose Tyler says yes.  
  


****  
  


Marriage, somehow, is easier than proposing, and far less human. There are no rings, no promises, no worries. It happens by accident, on a strange planet and while surrounded by a group of strangers. The Doctor and Rose share a smile and a kiss, and in the next second, they are swept away by a tidal wave of happy congratulations.

Momentary confusion gives way to manic laughter, and they grasp hands and kiss again, a second time, before running back towards the TARDIS, pleased and overjoyed and ready to face the next adventure.  
  
_Together_.


End file.
